Microsoft Power BI and Qlik Sense are both Business Intelligence platforms. They are both prominent names in the BI space, although Microsoft is more well known. However, both Power BI and Sense are newer developments from Microsoft and Qlik, respectively.
Microsoft Power BI is the giant’s newest BI offering, which focuses on making BI more accessible to smaller organizations in the SMB space as well as enterprises. Qlik Sense, on the other hand, is more focused on delivering data analytics to enterprises. It also has users across company sizes, but is more common in larger organizations.
Features
Microsoft Power BI and Qlik Sense have different focuses on feature areas that differentiate their ideal use cases.
Power BI is designed to be more accessible and lighter weight for smaller organizations. It also maximizes on benefits from integrating smoothly with other Microsoft products, streamlining data importing and management for companies that already live in the Microsoft ecosystem. This also makes management and training easier for companies that are Microsoft-first. It is also more price-competitive than Qlik Sense.
However, Qlik Sense brings more enterprise-scale firepower along with the higher price tag. It provides more in-depth enterprise dashboarding and advanced visualizations. These dashboards and visualization are also more customizable than what Power BI can easily allow. Outside of Microsoft-first environments, Qlik Sense is also a leader in collaborative data reporting.
Limitations
There are also limitations to Microsoft Power BI and Qlik Sense worth considering.
Power BI’s greater accessibility comes at the cost of more advanced capabilities. For instance, it has more limited advanced visualization capabilities, and more specialized data management and modelling are more difficult, particularly at larger scales. This leads to a lower cap of what can be accomplished with Power BI, and adds a steeper learning curve for midlevel and higher modelling and visualizations.
On the other hand, Qlik’s higher range of capabilities comes with higher resource costs. For instance, once data is loaded into models any modifications to the data or the model becomes a much more intensive task, which makes Qlik require more active management from users or administrators. It is also not as user-friendly around certain customizations and visual aspects, such as color and font customization.
Pricing
Microsoft Power BI offers two pricing packages. Power BI Pro is a self-service BI offering managed by Microsoft, which costs $9.99/user/month. The Power BI Premium adds more big data analytics, cloud and on-premises reporting, and unlimited users. Premium costs $4,995/month per resource.
Qlik Sense also offers two pricing packages. Qlik Sense Business, at $30/user/month, offers the core Qlik Sense platform and can be trialed for free for 30 days. Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS, priced at $70/Professional/month, $40/Analyzer/month, or $100/Analyzer Capacity/month, adds additional governance capabilities, managed spaces, and multiple user types.
